Born of the Ones and Zeroes

Computers as an example of Consilience

<< Every second, every fraction of a second that a computer is turned on, the only thing that is happening, really, is that these ones and zeroes I keep harping on are passing through partially predetermined pathways. When you look, you see windows, toolbars, pictures, menus, and text, but all of it is simply part of a constantly moving stream of bits and bytes, flowing at speeds the human mind cannot easily conceive.

We already have established that those bits and bytes make the basic building blocks of computer theory, just as atoms, constants, and forces make up our physical reality. Computer scientists, long ago, actually dealt with computers in those bits and bytes, feeding the computer bit by bit the information it needed, reading, from lights on or off, what the computer did with those bits.
    This tedious process soon was replaced, however, by machine language, a cryptic, but much faster way of feeding information. This new language was easily translatable, however, to the previous levels, and it was no doubt often useful and even necessary to do so.
    As more time passed, more and more levels of communication developed. Now, computer programmers write their instructions in a hybrid of english logic and mathematics. Computer users who once entered on and off like the first computer scientists learned to use command prompts and then graphical user interfaces.
    Each of these, levels, however, can be reduced, very easily, back to the bits that are still happening at the most basic levels. Just as most of the workings of the 'hard' sciences can be traced down to their underlayer of physics, computer programs can be reduced and rebuilt from bits.

And so, in a Consilient universe, would all thing be reducible. Even the workings of our minds, like the great 'thinking' computers of today (consider Deep Blue, who plays chess with Gary Kasparov and wins,) could be broken down to simple physical impulses and nothing but. Which is just where we may finally have to look for proof of consilience. >>